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Whether it was a bungalow or a burrow, the second wettest year on record saw families flooded out of their homes across the country.

But for the smallest victims of 2012's extreme weather, the stakes are higher than simply insurance claims: they mean the future survival of species.

Conservationists now face an anxious wait to find out how a population of endangered Tansy beetles have fared following their relocation from the banks of the River Ouse in York due to last year's floods.

But for those with less interest in "creepy crawlies", what impact can the loss of a few invertebrates have on our wildlife as a whole?

Bad for butterflies

As president of the charity Butterfly Conservation, Sir David Attenborough warned last year that 2012 would present a struggle for many species.

“Start Quote

If these conditions become more frequent, they could have long-term consequences for Britain and Ireland's bird populations”

End QuoteDr Dave LeechBritish Trust for Ornithology

Kestrel numbers were down and the lowest productivity rate in 50 years was recorded for chaffinches, suggesting that the heavy weather disrupted a wide variety of species.

Chicks were lost as record rainfall in April and June washed out nests and young birds had not developed the feathers to protect themselves. According to the BTO's senior research ecologist Dr Dave Leech, food was the key issue.

"A group that really suffered was the resident species that are really very dependent on caterpillars. The best examples of those are blue tits and great tits," he tells BBC Nature.

"The timing of the caterpillar peak is really vital in terms of determining their breeding success. Because it was such a bad caterpillar year in terms of the weather, there was very little food around for them."

Although Dr Leech is confident that songbird numbers can bounce back after a poor season because they have large numbers of chicks every year, he expresses concerns about a long-term change in weather patterns.

"The worry is that the extreme conditions in 2012 were the result of a shift in the position of the jet stream... If these conditions become more frequent, they could have long-term consequences for Britain and Ireland's bird populations."

Water wonderland

The Bat Conservation Trust expressed concerns for species last autumn after poor weather interrupted the essential foraging period before hibernation.

According to the charity, rare species are particularly vulnerable to disruption. Monitoring schemes in May will reveal any early indicators of how bats fared, however consequences for the long-living species may not be fully realised for years.

Year of the Slug

And it's not just the more obscure species that have a hard time during unseasonal floods. Some of our most iconic mammals suffer the from the weather's impact on invertebrates.

Badgers and hedgehogs that rely on earthworms could face hard times, according to Matt Shardlow, chief executive of the conservation charity Buglife.

Unsurprisingly, worms living in true floodplains that are frequently waterlogged are adapted to survive in these conditions. But when the ground becomes unexpectedly saturated, problems arise.

"There are about 20 different species of earthworm in Britain and some of those species are adapted to flooding," Mr Shardlow explains, but he warns that temperature is all-important.

"In warm weather in summer, three or four days [in flood water] might be enough to destroy the worm population whereas in the winter it might be weeks and they might still be reasonably ok."

Moist molluscs such as the garden snail are wet-weather winners

"In the winter they are probably under ground already, they have probably slowed down metabolically, so they don't have the same high oxygen demand."

2012 was dubbed "the Year of the Slug" and Buglife reported bumper breeding success for molluscs, crane flies and drone flies, so it seems that not all small things do badly in a downpour.

But the poor breeding conditions for some of our beetles, butterflies and bees could have far-reaching consequences for British wildlife.

"A wildlife-rich countryside with lots of suitable habitat [that is] well connected and with strong populations of species will be able to recover from extreme weather events," says Mr Shardlow.

"But an impoverished countryside with species populations already struggling will be less able to recover and we could have local extinctions of vulnerable species."

Winterwatch continues on BBC Two at 2030 GMT until Thursday, 17 January.

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